to declare my dad as a sexist pig

My dad passed away last year. It was and is very upsetting. We didn't have the closest of relationships. Nonetheless, he is my dad.

But venturing onto this topic has reminded me of one his traits and I just had to vent I guess.

My dad could be defined by many characterisations. Sexist was definitely one of them. Did I ever call him sexist? Often. Did he deny being sexist. Every damn time. Why is that by the way? Coward.

We never got into any huge debates about it, there was literally no point. And he always supported me to be ambitious and take no crap from anyone. Even a man. But let me give you some common examples.

1) Women can't drive. 2) Women portrayed as powerful or as some sort of superwoman or in those films where a woman can take down ten men were absolutely ridiculous and embarrassing, not real life (er, most films aren't real life). 3) If he read something in the news where the woman was the victim she probably deserved it (I'm talking husband murdering wife kind of crime - it was said lightly but still!) but if it was the other way round then the man was weak and the woman a bitch. 4) Women who were verbally aggressive wanted to own a pair of balls and lastly 5) there are too many men out there now dominated by women and it's not right.

Does this belong in the feminism chat? I'm not sure as I'm just starting to learn about it. I just find it baffling that I grew up around a man like this, seeing my mum belittled and treated like a skivvy daily and yet I turned out, I hope, with pretty good expectations of how I should be treated by a man, be it my DP or a man in the street. And I definitely am nothing like my mum. Maybe one thing I got from him was my confidence and strength.

Not too dissimilar to my dad, who died 30 years ago. In that era, I was also brought up being told that feminists were just loonies who burnt their bras.

Took a while, but I did my own research and would say I've been a feminist for the last 25 years. Enjoy the journey! And condolences for your father. Like mine, he was no doubt a product of his upbringing and environment, attitude not necessarily acceptable, but maybe understandable?

I don't know how old your dad was but my dad is in his 70s and would never have expressed any of these views, even when younger. As with people saying "I can't pull my gran up on the N word because she's 80", well, no, it's not "his era". It's perfectly possible for people brought up in that era not to use this kind of language.

While my dad, and my parents' relationship (now over though friendly) were by no means perfect feminist models, I think it has helped me to be an independent adult woman to have reasonably healthy views expressed by both parents.